wuding | a home.

a home.

They fall together, like fresh snow off the mountaintop: first, in measured, patient, cultivating reunion after an extended dinner at their inn. Then, with passion. Then, syrupy and slow, with morning. In a rare, turn, after bathing, Lan Wangji denies himself the rigors and discipline of morning and coaxes them back abed, to hold his lover throughout his rest near sunrise, until halfway to midday.

He stirs them, inevitably, when the blinding bright white of the day overwhelms, and they must set for the road to make good pace to Cloud Recesses while still enjoying their stroll. They arrive, meandering, in the depths of a trickling, golden afternoon, when much of the clan is distracted with the latest lecture of a visiting hermit — they say, an aspiring immortal — and neither Uncle nor Sizhui can be politely parted from his wisdom. First, a brief stop with Liang. Secondly, for Lan Wangji, yet slowed by his fading wounds and bruises, to test the recovery of his disciples.

Lastly, facing the dregs of an afternoon together with no duties, no assignments, no occupation — curiosity wins over. With the packed necessities of a quick meal in his qiankun pouch, he steers Wei Ying to walk the winding, if peaceful path toward the peripheral territories, past the liminal, isolated quietude of the jingshi and into the periphery of Lan Wangji's inherited grounds.

A short walk, yet they may have breached the threshold of a brave new world. He had chosen the space for its proximity to river water, cunning, lively spikes of rice stabbing the field, alongside feral flowers. Already, the builders and architects have marked a path to make a road, but they have yet to set down wood or stone for steps. These, he knows, are still young days for their home, Wei Ying's house, rising on strong, sprawling bones that stretch out over a considerable territory: a number of rooms, some superfluous, including an isolated study for Wei Ying's pleasure and a music chamber. A large kitchen, for all much of the house yet misses its roof. A segment for the archery post Lan Wangji had bidden. The house, designed to host an inner garden, even boasts the allocated space for a pond men had been digging until mere hours prior, when their toil ended.

"To grow lotus," he murmurs, nodding ahead where the pond is yet to glisten and crest, where its waters are short of rising. And he does not ask, Do you like it, what it can be? But his gaze flickers between Wei Ying's face and the home in desperate, hungry study.

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Wei Ying's attention, showering over him, is like the first licks of sun after a cruel winter: undeserved but gratefully, greedily accepted. He tips his head in to preen and present himself, to allow Wei Ying ease of reach to him. So that he might be, shamelessly and unrepentantly, kissed to both their hearts' content.

Then, Wei Ying speaks — makes a heart-breakingly sweet effort to attempt to translate Lan Wangji's lacklustre words. He listens, throughout. If Wei Ying pays him such mind, he will ever at least listen.

"No. Simpler." He is tempted once more by silence, to gather all of his thoughts, while his stormed gaze shields him from perception. He cannot speak until that which he communicates is wisely considered, perfect. Perhaps that is the root of his quietude, the same reason that so often sabotages him.

He tries, in the end. "I am... a dog." And hastily, words spilling out in a deluge, "Apologies. I am. And have found my bone. I cannot... relinquish him. You are to me, love. Obsession. Remedy. Peace. Home. Need never worry of parting. If you cast me aside, will sleep at your feet. Your door. I cannot..."

Leave. Be truly parted. That is the true sickness of his love.

Edited 2024-04-12 19:27 (UTC)

He takes it in stride that his attempt to discern what Lan Zhan meant had been incorrect. If anything, that makes it easier on him. Truly opening himself up and digging through the sludge of his heart sounds difficult. Too hard for him to want to volunteer to do it tonight, even though he’d be willing to endure the discomfort if it means they’ll battle less in the future.

“You bite like a dog,” he laughs a little, then clamps his mouth shut and lets Lan Zhan finish speaking without interrupting him again. He likes hearing his husband’s deep, melodic voice. And the more he listens now, the happier he starts to feel.

Once he’s sure Lan Zhan’s said all that he wants to say, Wei Wuxian closes the distance between them with another kiss. This time it’s a lingering thing, firm and alive between them. He only pulls back after a while because he wants to speak.

“I love you,” he says with a grin. The alcohol still in his system, the kiss, the words. Everything leaves him feeling giddy and he doesn’t try to subdue any of it. Maybe he really would fit in with a Lan forehead ribbon with how much he tries to hide aspects of himself. If he had one, it would come off right now. “Me too, Lan Zhan. I want you close. I want you to love me so much that you don’t know how to handle it because that’s how much I love you. Even if you say you’re a dog, you’ll be the only dog I’ll never be scared of.”

He was heeded. He did not think — but then, he ever presumes, his pessimism a foregone conclusion — that Wei Ying would listen. Hear, perhaps.

But he listened. And he feels like a well cherished, faithful and true dog, also, when he is rewarded with a kiss he answers thoughtlessly, greedily, on instinct. Here is a beautiful, happy and briefly untroubled thing: his husband, his darling. Of course Lan Wangji must kiss him back.

"You drank good wine," he murmurs, somewhere between amused and bashful over the depth of his sensitivity to alcohol, so stringent that he can tell the notes and aftertaste on his husband's lips. "Thank you."

For understanding, he need not so. For permitting this one instance of gratitude, for all they've sworn no please and thank you and goodbye between them. He dips his forehead closer to Wei Ying's, taking advantage of their proximity to cup his hands and raise water from their bathtub, nodding toward his palms as if to ask if Wei Ying will allow his hair cleansed.

"How is it Lan Liang loves you best now?"

He laughs again at the comment about the wine, “Emperor’s Smile is the best wine in Gusu. Maybe the best wine in the world.” Well, maybe not the objective best, but it’s his subjective favorite. It’s a lucky thing that they live so close to its source. And they’ll live even closer once they move to their house on the outskirts.

He nods and tilts his head forward, inviting Lan Zhan to rinse his hair. It’s a mess after their stint in the river since he hasn’t bothered to comb it out. Hopefully it isn’t too tangled. It would be a shame having to cut out knots. “I’m glad you told me how you feel,” he says, reaching blindly for some of Lan Zhan’s sandalwood oils. He likes using the ones that remind him of his husband more than the ones that remind him of his childhood in Yunmeng, especially after an argument.

“He loves me because I’m his mother,” he says, using his fingers to part through the sheet of his wet hair. “He loves you too. I just spend more time with him. And I guess there’s also to problem of your face. Sometimes you can come across as pretty scary with how serious you are.”

There is warmth still within Wei Ying, the residue of drink. It makes him soft, as Lan Wangji cards his hair with one hand and brings up water with the other, raining it down. Pliant and tender, easily appeased.

After, it's slow, measured, patient steps to untangle his hair, one knot at a time, injecting small dollops of ointments to cleanse the threads, then oils to bring them to pristine condition.

"...my face?" He queries, and it's unfair, he knows, to take advantage. In his natural, more guarded state, Wei Ying would hesitate to inflict the weight of his full opinion upon his husband. That he is generous with his pronouncements now is more a testimony that Emperor's Smile truly is the best wine in the world.

But to think of Liang withdrawing from him, on account of his... scariness. That he might put off his own child. No. This warrants a discussion and change thereafter.

"Instruct me how to mend this."

He shakes his head with a smile, “No need. The more he sees you, the more he’ll know you. He’s used to my face, so when he sees your face in comparison it reminds him of my face when I’m in a melancholic or bitter mood. He’ll learn that you’re actually really sweet and gentle, even though your natural relaxing face looks intimidating. Just like he’s going to learn that I’m the strict parent even though I smile so much!”

He doesn’t like sitting still most of the time, but he doesn’t mind it right now. Not even all the hair detangling. If he were sober, he might have a harder time of it. He wonders if he’s gone too far by talking about Lan Zhan’s face like this. He doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there’s a reason all the juniors act on their best behavior when Lan Zhan is around.

“He isn’t scared when you smile at him,” he says, trying to give him some sort of actionable advice. “And he likes it when you talk to him or play him music. The best remedy is giving him some more dad time.”

More time. More and more and more. This is ever what his family has requested of him, Wei Ying's only demand. Now, even Lan Liang is tacitly complicit. He wishes to enjoy more of his father's company, to command a smile that rears itself only as often and as timely as true spring.

So be it. In matters of the impossible, Wei Ying has achieved much and asks significantly less. It will be done, as it is bidden.

Even now, Lan Wangji decides to give his lover more than his due of their nightly rites, expending a significant, unnecessary portion of time untangling each and every knot — as if sailor's rope, begging unbound. He carries and releases more cupped water, stirs in salts, massages the root, then the lacquered length of the tresses.

He should not persist, taking advantage of his husband's light drunkenness. And yet. "Are you scared? When I do not smile at Wei Ying."

It’s only a matter of time before he starts to feel restless under the care and attention Lan Zhan pays to his hair. He really ought to have combed through it with his fingers after the dip in the river. He’d been focused too much on trying to leech warmth from his husband.

“Scared of you?” He laughs at the idea. “When we were kids, I thought you were disgusted by me, but I wasn’t scared of you. Now… well, I bet I can read your face even better than Zewu-Jun.” Holding Lan Zhan’s hand is impossible when they’re busy detangling his hair, so he pokes at Lan Zhan’s stomach instead. “I’m not a little baby, though. Maybe I misspoke. I don’t think Lan Zhan scares A-Liang too much or he’d cry more when you’re holding him. But he stares at you a lot, doesn’t he? Babies like expressive faces best and Lan Zhan’s facial expressions are too subtle.”

He thinks about it more and then peeks up at Lan Zhan’s face through the curtain of his hair. “Don’t worry about it too much. He’s learning how to read your face better every day.”

There is a moment, under Wei Ying's gaze, when he thinks to cast his glance aside and deflect, and let the matter be done, the subject visited to completion. But they are repeatedly wedded, thoroughly bedded, committed this life and the next. If he does not afford this one man his honesty, whom may he allow it?

Releasing Wei Ying's hair, he dips back to rest against the bathtub, glimpsing the way of his husband and working his face into various, comically exaggerated expression: first fear, then a smile that cleaves his mouth, gutting sorrow, a frown so deep his squint strains him. Fluctuating between them to the best of his limited, clearly struggling thespian ability — practising.

"Just so?"

He grins while watching Lan Zhan try out different facial expressions. Over the time they’ve been together, he’s seen the real versions of each of the exaggerated emotions his husband is going through now. It’s weird to see, but it’s cute too. In the end, he shakes his head and gives him a quick kiss for trying.

“He’ll be able to tell if it’s not natural,” he advises, resting a hand on either of Lan Zhan’s shoulders. “Try thinking of something that makes you feel happy and then try smiling again.” He doesn’t want to discourage Lan Zhan’s efforts, but he doesn’t want them to backfire on him either. It would be awful if Lan Zhan put his heart and soul into it and it just makes Lan Liang cry or cower.

“Let’s spend time with A-Liang tomorrow. The nursemaid can have some time off to get acquainted with her new home, anyway. I’ll take care of him if you get busy, but it would be better if you’re there with us.”

Passing, but still a formidably fragile effort. He nods, at once chastened and keen, ever the proper Lan disciple who will learn irrespective of his first stymied efforts. At least Wei Ying seems — ...optimistic over his progress, mouth warm and eyes sparkling. A true teacher, undeterred by the first obstacle in their path.

Lan Wangji can but hope to do him proud, as he curls into his husband agreeably, their noses brushing, their breaths mingled. He says nothing at first, lets the silence envelop them, comes at ease with it. Then, his mouth achieves the uncharitable gesture Xichen ever tried to instruct him in, taunting, teasing, then straining into a smile that dissolves into the true, unperformative version only because it is Wei Ying before them. Wei Ying, who inspires it gladly.

He feels a little hopeless, perhaps demure. And yet, "Now?"

He watches Lan Zhan’s next attempt openly, smiling the whole time he tries. It’s a little unnatural at first, but then it softens after a few struggling moments. His own grin softens too, eyes dipping down to look at his husband’s lips. “Good. That’s… good,” he says somewhat distracted, mind clearly moving into another direction.

The kiss starts out gentle, sweet, and he can’t help but be lured in for more. Lan Zhan’s always handsome, but there’s just something about seeing him smiling and knowing it’s at least partially because of him that makes his husband irresistible. His hands sneak their way to Lan Zhan’s throat, then further up to cup both of his cheeks.

“You’re gorgeous,” he says between kisses, thumbs rubbing softly against Lan Zhan’s face, “It’s been long enough, hasn’t it?” He doesn’t want to push Lan Zhan into something he’s not comfortable with, but he’s only a man.

Long enough that he answers the kiss, meets Wei Ying's mouth and claims it headily. Nearly melts into the warmth of his husband, the temptation to simply concede to his pull a wild, desperate thing.

But then, it strikes him — past their new, all-consuming rule, the need to separate each other from the urgency to couple to distract from their quarrels and their hurts — the taste of Wei Ying's kisses. The slight hint of bitterness, its strange artifice.

Its implications.

"You have drunk." A truth, as much as a question: will it not impede Wei Ying? Does he yet know what he asks for?

His mouth chases Lan Zhan’s when he pulls away, seeking more of that familiar tingle he feels when their lips meet. After a few moments, he sighs and sits back where they can look at each other. Even though Lan Zhan’s pulled away from him, he runs a finger along the edge of his husband’s ear. A path he wants to follow with his lips and tongue.

“I have,” he says hesitantly. “It’s never bothered you when I drank before.” And it takes him a little while to figure out what’s different about this time. They’d been arguing. He’d imbibed excessively because of that fight, too. But he’s not upset now. “I’m fine. I barely feel it anymore.”

There are any number of things he can do to tempt Lan Zhan into sleeping with him. It’s not exactly difficult to drive Lan Zhan mad with ardor for him. But something holds him back from making a move.

This is important to Lan Zhan. To make sure before moving on. And if he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t want to deal with a mopey husband who’s feeling guilty for doing something they both want. “If you don’t want to sleep with me tonight, can you at least let me kiss you while I take care of myself. I could help you too, if you want it.”

"I want to sleep with you," he contradicts with a gentleness so often reserved for simpler, sweeter, more saccharine things unclouded by the specter of desire. His rabbits. His disciples.

After all, he need not correct: taking care of each other with their hands is yet lovemaking, for all it is absent of penetration. But the point feels lacking, academic. Drawn, moth to flame, he hunts down Wei Ying's mouth in a kiss that simmers, then heats, Lan Wangji's hands cupping his lover's cheeks on each side as he deepens. There is a beauty to Wei Ying unraveled in this way, bare and submerged, that cannot be captured in words.

He drinks him in.

"Consider. If you are certain." Check in with yourself. "Here, or in our bed?"

“I want to sleep with you, too,” he says, trying to match the gentle tone Lan Zhan is using. He leans forward and brushes his nose and cheek across Lan Zhan’s cheek like he’s a cat seeking affection. Maybe he should have phrased it differently. He knows Lan Zhan always wants him and that it’s his desire for unwavering consent that stills him now.

His fingers draw little designs on Lan Zhan’s neck when the kiss starts. He inches his way forward until they’re pressed together. Until there’s no way to mistake either of their desire for the other.

He whines when Lan Zhan pulls away from him and he gives chase. Kissing him again and again before the meaning of his husband’s words trickle in. With a sigh, he opens his eyes and stares straight into Lan Zhan’s. “I want you tonight. And every night,” he tells him, smiling.

But is that enough?

“I’m not running away from anything right now. I just want to love my Lan Zhan and be loved too.” That just leaves the problem of their location. “You’re just going to want to bathe again after we’re done… but it’s more comfortable in the bed. Hmm… let’s go to the bed.”

To love and be loved. No desire to run.

Wei Ying, kittenish and slow, courts him as if he is a precious thing, molten. Gives him what he wants, their cheeks colliding in tender, soft friction. Their mouths meet, nearly by chance. He deepens the kiss, taking care to steal every last remnant of Wei Ying's scent, his breath.

Then, he releases his husband, watching him with hungry, proprietary and assessing greed. And he instructs, "Go first."

For once, not attended by Lan Wangji with thorough delicacy and painful intentionality.

"Clothe yourself in one layer. Go to your mirror and brush your hair. Gaze only within." He remembers what Wei Ying requested before their evening soured: an intruder, come to steal and defile him, allowing him no barter. What sluggishness the drink affords Wei Ying will only serve his attacker.

It’s easy to fall into line kissing Lan Zhan and letting him lead. Their tongues dance across each other and their parted lips like they have one mouth between them. He’s starting to think that maybe sleeping together in the bath isn’t that bad of an idea. They’ve since started using a reinforced tub after breaking so many, so they probably wouldn’t break this one.

Whining, he chases Lan Zhan’s mouth for a moment before sitting back and licking the moisture from his lips. He likes the way Lan Zhan looks at him as if he is a hunted thing. A rabbit in the presence of a tiger.

At first, he doesn’t remember the request he made earlier in the day, but he grins when it dawns on him. He likes it when Lan Zhan is a little rough with him and he harbors certain fantasies that this sort of play is the only way he wants to live them. He reaches his up and cups one of Lan Zhan’s cheeks and he gives him one more short kiss.

“Don’t be gentle,” he requests. They both know that he’s going to fight it and struggle, but that’s half the fun.

He stands up and pats his upper half dry before climbing out of the tub and doing the same for his lower half. He’s already mostly hard after all that kissing and the anticipation of being thoroughly debauched by his husband. He gives Lan Zhan one last grin before fetching a clean red robe and doing what he’s been told. Lan Zhan’s done a good job taking out the tangles and knots in his hair, so it’s not difficult to run a comb through it.

Be silent, says Wei Ying, yet so often withdraws at the first signal of true discomfort or coercion. This, then, is the game of it: pushing, but no farther than Wei Ying's natural capacity to yield. Reading the tells of his sweet, softening body, before tension arrests him.

He nods, accepting his assignment, released to proceed as he wishes and take the reins of their evening away from his husband's too-long burdened hands. In truth, he understands some part of the appeal: Wei Ying, perpetually wrecked by impossible decisions, wishes to surrender control of himself and his autonomy. To be, for mere instants, forgiven of himself.

As his lover withdraws, Lan Wangji gives wait, injecting a few moments of delay between them, so that when he too pulls away from the bathtub, they are sight unseen. First, he busies himself with tidying the bathing space, pouring out their used bath water and preparing the buckets of leftover, clean supplies nearby. Then, he navigates the room to reach drying linens but stay outside of Wei Ying's sight. He considers, briefly, whether he should don robes — then commits to the part of the wicked barbarian, bare and unrepenting.

Moments later, he checks in on Lan Liang, refreshing talismans so that they are alerted by the sound of sweet, crystalline bells by the child's first waking murmur. The final precaution: he leaves the braziers to breathe warmth in their home, but quiets the candles. On the way back toward their sleeping quarter, he steals away the small, fairly blunt blade used to peel away the seals of letters and perform other mundane tasks of correspondence. He dare not misuse Bichen in this, a blade like death's own sting.

At last, he is ready, slinking neatly and unheard, like a large cat in the dark to creep up on his husband from behind, careful to withhold his body and face in the shadows, and only press the letter blade close enough to Wei Ying's neck that the two might kiss.

"A fool, he who left a beautiful thing alone. Scream, and your sect whole will know your humbling." And hissed, "Cooperate, and no harm comes done. Be wise."

Edited 2024-04-15 16:34 (UTC)

He hums to himself while he tends to the tasks a young maiden may finish after her evening bath. One of a gentle breed, but not truly noble since he doesn’t have a handmaid to do the chore of brushing out his hair. He honestly doesn’t spend that much time in front of mirrors these days. This body is an acceptable one. Handsome, youthful, boyish with very little in the way of body hair. A little on the skinny side, but he thinks he’s put on a small amount of weight compared to the beginning when it has been actively and intentionally starved. He’s become accustomed to it, no longer viewing it as something not his own.

His heart is beating fast while he waits for Lan Zhan. He doesn’t look over or try to manipulate the angle of the mirror, but he can tell Lan Zhan’s cleaning up after their bath by the sound of water splashing. Only a Lan would prioritize chores over getting laid! It makes him feel fond rather than disappointed.

He considers putting his hair up so it’s out of the way, but decides against it in the end. Maybe Lan Zhan will grab it and use it to push and pull him wherever he wants him to go.

He’s not expecting the knife to appear before his attacker and he tries to step back reflexively and runs into the solid form of Lan Zhan. “Please, I don’t have much. Take anything you’d like, just please don’t hurt me.”

I don't have much. How strange, to think his smile such a coveted commodity, yet feel it threaten to spike and bloom now as he hurriedly dips his head down to conceal it. The audacity of this man, claiming poverty as Lan Wangji noses at prestige silk of prized craftsmanship emboldened by delicate, golden embroidery.

Grasping Wei Ying's hair to push it aside until it whispers down one shoulder, Wangji's mouth latches onto the bared column of his lover's throat, blade careful to linger just ahead of Wei Ying's jugular. His teeth rake down, conniving. The hand bereft of his knife drifts down to caress the sharp-pointed peak of Wei Ying's hip, raising the hem.

"Anything. I intend to." Rough, mean, uninvited, his leg slips between Wei Ying's from behind, pushing one out to part them. "You will please me."

He catches the beginning of the smile just before Lan Zhan dips his head down and he can’t help but match it momentarily. Oh, that won’t do, will it? A smiling damsel being manhandled by a brute who doesn’t even wear robes when entering a lady’s chamber. He wants to step back and feel Lan Zhan against him, but he manages to maintain his character and merely whimpers instead.

“Please,” he pleads again, biting back the moan that wants to escape him at the feel of his husband’s teeth along his sensitive skin. “Anything but that. I’m still a virgin,” he says, but obediently parts his legs at the intrusion.

There’s something freeing to at least pretend to lose his autonomy like this. Where he can basically let Lan Zhan take control of their bed play while he takes whatever is given to him. And then there’s the brutality of the act that will likely leave him sore, but feels so cathartic to experience. He wonders if he would have liked something like this back in his first life. He thinks he would have loathed feeling powerless back when he’s been harboring the Wens in Yiling. The difference now is about trust. If they go too far (doubtful) he knows he could break character and Lan Zhan would heed him.

A virgin. The second threat of a smile corrupts his mouth nearly to bloom. There is not a single flattened surface in this house on which they have not bedded, many unfit for purpose. Yet Wei Ying sings of his virtue.

On Wei Ying's hip, his hand tightens, knuckles white from steely strain. In the mirror, the scale of his fingers against Wei Ying's narrow waist is an intoxication of power, abused.

He lifts his hand to catch Wei Ying's hair in a hard pull, as if thick rope, dragging his lover back in a sharp arch. The press of his husband's — the maiden's buttocks against his swollen length is warmth, bursting. He leans into the friction, a raspy moan punched out of him at the next heated exhalation.

Wei Ying's throat, pale and bare, compels him to bite at the base. "You deny me? Who will know?"

He catches Lan Zhan’s eyes in the reflection for a moment and he winks coyly at him. A little bit outside of the behavior of a maiden being assaulted, but he can’t help himself when he sees the creases at the corners of Lan Zhan’s eyes that betray the instinct to smile. How he loves when Lan Zhan takes control like this. He can rest assured that Lan Zhan will be pleased with how their evening progresses.

“But you’re so big,” he says, barely managing to resist the urge to press himself closer to Lan Zhan. It’s not just Wei Wuxian who is already ready to go. “You’ll tear me in half.”

He gasps, head jerking back and exposing more of his throat for Lan Zhan’s. This time when he pleads, he can only moan the words out. “Please, please, have mercy on this poor maiden. However can I please you so you spare my life?”

This vixen, shamelessly winking, tempting Lan Wangji to break character. Ah, but maybe this is what it means to age in their love, to mature in the depth of their affection: to embrace each other and their absurdity, and to feel at ease with these instance when they are not entirely overwhelmingly serious in their pursuit.

He is enough, at the end of a long day of emotion, travel and quarrel, steeling his face to pretend he is a great, despicable villain of tales long told. As Wei Ying leans into him, he holds onto the so-called reins of his hair, forcing his lover to look only ahead, into the mirror.

"Close your eyes." If Lan Wangji cannot be trusted to retain his composure throughout this exercise, at least Wei Ying should not bear witness. It is, after all, a request any sensible infiltrator would make. "And take the knee. Your mouth will please me. It requires no experience, virgin."

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